I am on a fact finding mission to investigate the pros and cons of adding Middle School Football to our public school program. We have kicked this idea around for years and have had resistance to it in the past. We have had a long standing town organized football program for 20+ years and we have had success in the past with it. However, many schools in our conference/area are moving towards making it a school sponsored program which is causing our program to have to travel to find games due to MSHSAA rules.
I can see both sides of the argument but I do know that some of most successful programs in the state have these programs through their middle schools as opposed to it being a town ran organization.
Some of the issues that we are seeing are:
School sponsored programs means we would have to find school staff to coach teams as opposed to volunteers (mostly dads) coaching the programs. Which in our case can be problematic getting enough staff together to coach these teams from pulling school employees.
We have had decent working relationship between the high school and the town led coaching staff(s), but in reality we cannot make them conform to what we want to do if they dont want to.
That being said, so some years we have groups of freshman that have been mirroring what the high school does and those kids hit the ground running and we have seen in years past that those kids are more acclimated to the offense and the terminology we use as opposed to the groups that do their own thing. It just makes it hard when you have to cover all the basics with the freshman groups that have not been familiarized with what we want to do at the high school level.
We are also seeing our numbers decline somewhat due to having to travel longer distances to find games and obviously athletes are paying their own way (equipment, referees, etc) as opposed to those things being provided by the school. So I would imagine participation would increase potentially,
One of the main resistances to making it a school sponsored program is that we have had 5 head coaches over the past 8 years and the argument from our town organization is that they dont want to conform to the high school offense/defense/scheme/terminology because it has changed so often in the past. I think our new head coach is going to be a guy that will stick for a long time but I can understand the reservations about it.
What I would like to hear from anyone willing to add to the conversation is what are the pros and cons anyone has seen from going one way or the other?
Most powerhouse programs have always had a pipeline from their middle schools to the high school level, but are there any smaller schools that have implemented middle school football and have witnessed the fruits of implementing it?
Has it increased participation, readiness for the high school level, smooth transitioning into understanding schemes and the direction of the program?
Under the premise that we plan on our head coach being around for a while, I think we could see it be a good thing but we need to convince the community of that. Or maybe it doesn't matter. I am just casting a line to see what the opinion from other programs are in the state.
Please add all you care to one way or the other.
I can see both sides of the argument but I do know that some of most successful programs in the state have these programs through their middle schools as opposed to it being a town ran organization.
Some of the issues that we are seeing are:
School sponsored programs means we would have to find school staff to coach teams as opposed to volunteers (mostly dads) coaching the programs. Which in our case can be problematic getting enough staff together to coach these teams from pulling school employees.
We have had decent working relationship between the high school and the town led coaching staff(s), but in reality we cannot make them conform to what we want to do if they dont want to.
That being said, so some years we have groups of freshman that have been mirroring what the high school does and those kids hit the ground running and we have seen in years past that those kids are more acclimated to the offense and the terminology we use as opposed to the groups that do their own thing. It just makes it hard when you have to cover all the basics with the freshman groups that have not been familiarized with what we want to do at the high school level.
We are also seeing our numbers decline somewhat due to having to travel longer distances to find games and obviously athletes are paying their own way (equipment, referees, etc) as opposed to those things being provided by the school. So I would imagine participation would increase potentially,
One of the main resistances to making it a school sponsored program is that we have had 5 head coaches over the past 8 years and the argument from our town organization is that they dont want to conform to the high school offense/defense/scheme/terminology because it has changed so often in the past. I think our new head coach is going to be a guy that will stick for a long time but I can understand the reservations about it.
What I would like to hear from anyone willing to add to the conversation is what are the pros and cons anyone has seen from going one way or the other?
Most powerhouse programs have always had a pipeline from their middle schools to the high school level, but are there any smaller schools that have implemented middle school football and have witnessed the fruits of implementing it?
Has it increased participation, readiness for the high school level, smooth transitioning into understanding schemes and the direction of the program?
Under the premise that we plan on our head coach being around for a while, I think we could see it be a good thing but we need to convince the community of that. Or maybe it doesn't matter. I am just casting a line to see what the opinion from other programs are in the state.
Please add all you care to one way or the other.
